Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-bvgqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-29T09:37:08.295Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An approach to the development of comparative cross-national studies of street-level bureaucracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2020

Michael Hill  and
Marie Østergaard Møller
Michael Hill
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle, New Castle, UK
Marie Østergaard Møller*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
*
CONTACT Marie Østergaard Møller mol@dps.aau.dk Department of Political Science, Aalborg University, Fibigerstræde 3, Room 31, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Propositions about street-level bureaucracy run the risk of violating the scientific precept that a theoretical generalisation should be tested by replication in a variety of contexts. Many examples can be found of writings that simply indicate that street-level discretion is pervasive. This prompts the questions, ‘but how’, and under what conditions ‘may’ that happen? Comparison is needed to answer these questions, particularly cross-national ones. It will be argued that good cross-national comparative work must rest upon precise specification of the contexts to be compared and avoiding comparing tasks that seem similar, but in fact serve different functions in different contexts. To explore this one particular task – pre-school child care – is selected. The discussion of this specific example is examined as a model for similar comparative work.

Keywords

Comparative studiesstreet-level bureaucracychild care

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , June 2019 , pp. 177 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Böhm, K., Schmid, A., Götze, R., Landwehr, C., & Rothgang, H. (2013). Five types of OECD healthcare systems: Empirical results of a deductive classification. Health Policy, 113, 258–269.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bonoli, G. (2013). The origins of active social policy: Labour market and childcare policies in a comparative perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1998). Practical reason: On the theory of action. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Brodkin, E. Z. (2007). Bureaucracy redux: Management reformism and the welfare state. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 17(1), 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cairney, P., & Jones, M. D. (2016). Kingdon's multiple streams approach: What is the empirical impact of this universal theory. Policy Studies Journal, 44(1), 37–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castles, F. G. (2004). The future of the welfare state. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dannesboe, K. I., Bach, D., Kjaer, B., & Palludan, C. (2018). Parents of the welfare state: Pedagogues as parenting guides. Social Policy and Society, 17(3), 467–480.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dolowicz, D., & Marsh, D. (1996). Who learns what from whom: A review of the policy transfer literature. Political Studies, 44, 343–357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, M. (1986). How institutions think. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Dubois, V. (2010). The bureaucrat and the poor: Encounters in French welfare offices. New York: Ashgate Publishing.Google Scholar
Elias, N. (1994). The civilizing process, trans. Edmund Jephcott. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). Three worlds of capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Eurofound. (2013). Third European quality of life survey – quality of society and public services. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.Google Scholar
European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice/Eurostat. (2014). Key data on early childhood education and care in Europe. Edition. Eurydice and Eurostat report. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums: Essays on the social situations of mental patients and other inmates. Oxford: Doubleday (Anchor).Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1990). The presentation of self in everyday life. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Hall, P. A., & Soskice, D. (2001). Varieties of capitalism: The institutional foundations of comparative advantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, M., Hupe, P., and Buffat, A. (2016). Understanding Street Level Bureaucracy. Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Hill, M., Hupe, P. (2003). The Multi-layer Problem in Implementation Research. in Public Management Review, 5(4), 471–490.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, M., Long, M., Marzanati, A., Bönker, F. (2010). The local government role in pre-school child care policy in France, Germany, Italy and the UK. In Wollmann, H. & Marcou, G. (Eds.), The Provision of Public Services in Europe (Vol. Edward Elgar). Cheltenham.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holzinger, K., & Knill, C. (2005). Causes and conditions of cross-national policy convergence. Journal of European Public Policy, 12(5), 775–796.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunter, D. J. (2008). The health debate. Bristol: Policy Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hupe, P. (2019). Research handbook on street-level bureaucracy: The ground floor of government in context. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hupe, P. L. (2013). Dimensions of discretion: Specifying the object of street-level bureaucracy research. DMS – Der Moderne Staat: Zeitschrift für Public Policy, Recht und Management, 6(2), 425–440.Google Scholar
Jenkins, R. (2008). Social identity. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jewell, C. J. (2007). Agents of the welfare state. How caseworkers respond to need in the United States, Germany and Sweden. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kingdon, J. W. (1995). Agendas, alternatives and public policies. New York: Addison: Wesley, Longman. 2nd edn (1st edn 1984).Google Scholar
Knight, P. T., & Trowler, P. R. (2000). Department-level cultures and the improvement of learning and teaching. Studies in Higher Education, 25(1), 69–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhlmann, S., & Wollmann, H. (2014). Introduction to comparative public administration. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Lipsky, M. (1980). Street-level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public services. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. 30th anniversary expanded edition (2010).Google Scholar
Lotta, G., & Marques, E. (unpublished). Street-level bureaucrats interactions with policy beneficiaries: how practices, discursive styles and personal networks specify health policy implementation in Brazil.Google Scholar
Møller, M. Ø. (2016). “She isn't Someone I Associate with Pension”—a Vignette Study of Professional Reasoning. Professions and Professionalism, 6(1), 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Møller, M. Ø. and Stensöta, H. O. (2017). Welfare state regimes and caseworkers’ problem explanation. Admnistration and Society, p. 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Møller, M. O., Stone, D. (2012). Disciplining disability under Danish active labour market policy. Social Policy & Administration, 47, 586–604.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
OECD. (2017). Starting strong: Monitoring quality in early childhood education and care. Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Painter, M., & Peters, B. G. (2010). Tradition and public administration. Basingstoke: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penn, H. (2014). The business of childcare in Europe. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 22(4), 432–456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollitt, C. (2013). New perspectives on public services. Place and technology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pollitt, C., & Bouckaert, G. (2004). Public management reform: A comparative analysis. USA: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sabatier, P. A., & Weible, C. S. (2007). The advocacy coalition framework: Innovations and clarifications. In Sabatier, P. A. (Ed.), Theories of the policy process. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Saracento, C. (2003). Mutamenti delle famiglie e politiche sociali in Italia. Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Sætren, H. (2005). Facts and Myths about research on public policy implementation: Out-of-fashion, allegedly dead, but still alive and relevant. Policy Studies Journal, 33, 559–582.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sætren, H. (2014). Implementing the third Generation research Paradigm in policy implementation research: An empirical assessment. Public Policy and Administration, 29(2), 84–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlager, E. (1997). A response to Kim Quaile Hill's In search of policy theory. Policy Currents, 7, 14–15.Google Scholar
Schneider, A. L., & Ingram, H. (1997). Policy design for Democracy. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Scott, W. R. (1995). Institutions and organizations: Ideas, interests and identities. 4 ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.Google Scholar
Soss, J., Fording, R., & Schram, S. F. (2011). The organization of discipline: From performance management to perversity and punishment. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 21, i203–i232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone, D. A. (1984). The disabled state. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winter, S. C., & Nielsen, V. L. (2013). Lærere, undervisning og elevpræstationer i folkeskolen. København: SFI-Det Nationale Forskningscenter for Velfærd.Google Scholar
Zacka, B. (2017). When the State Meets the Streets. Public Service and Moral Agency. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar